Captain Janks Tried To Scam Me
Do you listen to the Howard Stern Show?
There’s a guy on there- he’s part of the “Whack Pack” – and makes prank calls to radio and TV call-in shows.
“Captain Janks” is his name and he’s a gas station attendant near Philly.
Some of the bits are pretty funny, if you appreciate that kind of humor- but he’s just one more of the seemingly endless slew of characters to appear on the HSS.
So ANYWAY- I get a call from a “215″ number early last week and let it go to voicemail. About an hour later, I listened to the message- “Hey, this is Scott- I’m ‘Captain Janks’ on the Howard Stern Show. Listen, I’m launching a new DVD and am looking for a few places to do some promotional events in the Harrisburg area. I heard that your place [ABC] is a cool room. Gimme a call back and I’ll tell you more about it.”
Initially, I thought “Oh, cool. Howard Stern Show, plugs on the program, well known name. Might be kind of cool.”
So I played phone tag with Janks, finally connecting with him a few days later. He told me that he’s visited a few places in the Harrisburg area, but hadn’t really found an appropriate spot. One of the places he told me he met with was Aroogas- formerly the Ko-Ko-Mo’s on 22.
I described The Abbey Bar to him and directed him to the Website to view pictures and layout. About two hours later, he called me back.
“Hey, it’s Janks. Man, I tell ya. I checked out the Website and that looks like the perfect place to do this. I need a place that’s big enough because all of the places I do appearances at get PACKED. So yeah. Let’s do it. Basically, I come out for two hours- give out raffle tickets to everyone who comes in, we do some trivia, give away a few copies of the DVD and then at midnight, give away a Sirius Satellite Radio.”
“Cool, man. Sounds good. What timeframe are you looking for?”
“January 13, 14 or 15″
I was working a gig in Hershey, so I told Janks that I’d get back to him in the morning and let him know if that would work.
But first, I asked him what his fee was for the performance.
“My fee is only six hundred and fifty dollars. You get ten plugs on Howard’s show and we give away the radio.”
So right there, a few flags went up in my head. Six fifty for ten plugs on the Howard Stern show is virtually impossible. Second, if this guy had any kind of industry clout, he’d be represented by some kind of booking agency.
But the biggest, brightest flag-on-the-play was this “My fee is $650- but I’d need payment in full before I could plug it on the show. I can come out tomorrow and pick up a check.”
So after hanging up with him, I texted my friend George who listens to the show all the time. “Dude, r u a fan of capt. janks from stern?” I texted.
“Yeah, he’s funny. Are u thinking about booking him? I heard that he booked two shows in Philly and no-showed for both after getting paid in advance.” He replied.
I called him back, told him the story of the phone calls and thanked him for the info.
After doing some mild Googling, I found that, Captain Janks does, in fact, book “appearances”, get paid in advance, and not show up quite frequently.
So the next morning, Janks called me bright and early- right around the crack of nine- and asked when a good time for him to come pick up his check would be.
And I explained “Dude, I’d love to book you. You’ve got the date if you want it. And if you’d like, I’d happily pay you a hundred dollar deposit on the show…but I’ve heard and read in numerous places that you’ve gotten paid in advance numerous times before and have no-showed for the gig. Nothing personal, man. But I have to look out for the best interests of my club. We have national acts in here regularly and rarely pay a deposit – let alone payment in full nearly three months before the date. I hope you understand.”
Janks: “Er..uh…that…that only happened one time and I wound up going to the wrong place. It…where did you hear that stuff?”
“Doesn’t matter man. Like I said- you can have the date and will get paid in full when you appear. But don’t try to hustle me here, bro. Take it somewhere else.”
“Er, uh…okay. I’m gonna have to think about this and get back to you. Click.”
And since then, I haven’t heard a word.
I did, however, call Arooga’s on 22 and spoke with the manager who told me that Janks did pay their bar a visit and they did give him a check for his appearance far in advance of the date.
So- promoters/venue managers who may read this site: be wary of calls from Howard Stern’s Prank Caller guy.
And never, ever, EVER pay an artists fee in full before the event.
You may have known this being in the biz and all… but booking scamming is not too uncommon.
As soon as I read your post it reminded me of an article I read in the last year or so. It reported a dozen or so small venues were duped out of their money by a guy claiming to represent Tone Loc as well as others. Do a search for “Tone Loc Scam” and you will see an article by Pollstar, for some reason it is not coming up for me now though.
The cool thing is that once it caught media, the real Tone Loc agreed to do shows for them at the low prices agreed to with the scammer.
Very true, man. Although- I don’t know that I’d even want this d-bag to show up at this point.
Ton Loc, though- that’s a different story!
You should have called me and set up an appointment… for him to meet me… the wrong address on Cameron Street can make all the difference in the world!
what a dick.
this guy is a real piece of shit. i’m gettin my money back one way our another.howard you sould be pissed that he is bringing your name & that pf sirius
This creep has taken us for $500.00…we have a bar&grill in Mt Joy Pa. He apparently made his rounds one day around Lancaster County and took quite a few of the bars money!! What a SHIT!! We know of atleast 6 so far that were scammed!
He must count on that fact that most bars cant afford to go after him for the money. Wonder what will happen if we all got together ….we’ll be working on it! Someone needs to stop this pint size peice of SHIT!
Hopefully …”Captain Janks” your days of ripping off hard working
Bar owners is numbered! He is the true meaning of SCUM!
I booked him last year at the urging of some friends. I paid him $500.00 in advance for a 2 hour show with a radio give away.
He showed up, late, but at least he showed up. It was alot of fun, but not worth the $500. He tried to get me to book him again and I refused. Afterwards I heard about the scams he has been pulling. I’d beware of the captain.
You mentioned that the caller said his name was Scott. Captain Jank’s first name is Tom. It’s also odd that he solicited you, not the other way around. It might be possible that this guy wasn’t Janks.
I’m not saying that Janks isn’t up to anything, especially since he didn’t have a good defensive argument when he got into it with Langford on the air the other day.
Who knows…good thing it didn’t sit well with you and you bailed.
I run the shack sports bar and grill and he just pulled a no-show at and establisment 15 min away (the landslide) and again at a place 18 min away (Dag’s). we booked this guy for march 14 which is now starting to look pretty bad.
Agaisnt my better judgement i paid him with a check which he cash the next day. Jan 3 2009 he stated it was for the advertisement spot on the howard stern show and need to be paid in advance for the 3 spots on channel 100 – 101
I did place in the memo spot of the check- add time for siri channel 100 +101 since that is what he told me it was for.
I also have a signed copy of the contact.
At the time we meet i went to search info on him on the internet and he stopped me and said just put in this address – http://www.captainjanks.tk
when the site came up it throw a red flag but he explain why he was using a free web hosting server http://www.angelfire.com.
So all i can say is he’d better show up for his date or we will also be adding our name to the long list of people here in NJ for a law suit. and at this point it looks like a Larceny Charges may apply.
Larceny by false promise refers to where someone obtains property in exchange for a promise to do something when the person making the promise does not intend to fulfill that promise. An example would be individual A taking a down payment for doing work for individual B, and then A takes the money and runs off with no intention to ever do the work.
Shit, do any of you have his phone number still? I have him booked and I want to make sure he’s not coming so I can cancel the DJ.
Same story in Delaware at my restaurant, Kathy’s Crab House. Supposed to be here on Thursday evening April 30th, 9pm to 11pm with a free Sirius Satelite radio. I thought the pay in advance was unusual, but I am new at the entertainment deal. 1-267-631-8239 his office number and cell #215-767-6782. These are the numbers he left me after recieving a $ 500. Check which I am sure is a felony theft charge. Anyone in Delaware get the same deal, please call me and I will pursue it. Thomas Cipriano is the name on the contract and the name the check was written to. Promotion on the Howard Stern show is in the contract, so I do intend to file charges if it is a no show. Hopefully, no one else will get robbed by him.
I left all the info you requested under your comment. 267-613-8239 is supposedly his office number and 215-767-6782 is his cell. Good luck and I’d be glad to join the fight to make him pay!!!
On Capt Janks website:
“Captain Janks’ tour has been cancelled for ’09 due to personal issues. He has been in rehab, and is also dealing with medical and personal issues. He has lost everything, ie home, car, money, etc. He apologizes to all the fans, and clubs he has been booked at to do shows, and will be in touch with those places in the near future to reschedule, or refund deposits.
Again, he apologizes, and is officially retired from the business. Thank you to all for the support.”
He’s in jail now. Doubt any of you will ever see a dime of any money lost, but you should probably just chalk it up to experience and know not to pay in advance.
Drugs and personal faults are no excuse for ripping people off. It just means you’re a weak and bad person. He can rot in jail.
http://webapp.montcopa.org:8080/inmatelookup
Just put in his name